From Resettled Refugees to Humanitarian Actors: Refugee Diaspora Organizations and Everyday Humanitarianism

ABSTRACT

This article describes the everyday humanitarianism of refugees resettled in Australia who form small voluntary organizations to help “their people” displaced elsewhere in the world. The people involved in refugee diaspora organizations (RDOs) are animated by forces that reflect their distinct history, positionality, and relationship to the “suffering others” they help. What the everyday humanitarianism of RDOs suggests is that we live in a world of many-humanitarianisms, where there are different possibilities to care and connect to strangers in need. While “humanitarianism” has become synonymous with a set of dominant practices and actors, there is need for other actors – including refugee diaspora humanitarians – to be given space within both humanitarianism discourse and practice.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Liisa Malkki, “Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and Dehistoricization,” Cultural Anthropology 11:3 (1996), pp. 377–404.

² Liisa Malkki, “Figurations of the Human: Children, Humanity, and the Infantilization of Peace” in The Need to Help: The Domestic Arts of International Humanitarianism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015), pp. 77–104.

³ Scott Watson, The Securitization of Humanitarian Migration: Digging Moats and Sinking Boats (London, UK: Routledge, 2009).

⁴ Didier Fassin, “Noli Me Tangere: The Moral Untouchability of Humanitarianism,” in Peter Redfield and Erica Bornstein (eds), Forces of Compassion: Humanitarianism Between Ethics and Politics (Sante Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, 2010), pp. 35–52. See also Miriam Ticktin, Casualties of Care: Immigration and the Politics of Humanitarianism in France (San Diego, CA: University of California Press, 2011).

⁵ Richard Ashby Wilson and Richard D. Brown (eds), Humanitarianism and Suffering: The Mobilization of Empathy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

⁶ Michael Barnett, Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011).

⁷ Nicholas Van Hear, “The Rise of Refugee Diasporas,” Current History 108:717 (2009), pp. 180–88.

⁸ Lisa Ann Richey and Lilie Chouliaraki, “Everyday Humanitarianism: Ethics, Affects and Practices – Special Issue Call For Papers,” New Political Science 39:2 (2017), pp. 314–16.

⁹ Note that there are alternative ways of conceptualizing what RDOs do. For example, one could describe these practices in terms of collective remittances or as diaspora philanthropy. However, for the purposes of contributing to debates about the practices, beliefs, and implications of “everyday humanitarianism,” there is value in bringing “nontraditional” actors such as refugee diasporas into the picture. These actors are also responding to human suffering, but their practices and beliefs serve to muddy some of the artificial distinctions and assumptions made, for example, about who is the “helper” and who is “in need.”

¹⁰ Miriam Ticktin, “Transnational Humanitarianism,” Annual Review of Anthropology 43 (2014), p. 274.

¹¹ There are excellent monographs that illustrate this more expansive definition, including Didier Fassin’s Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2010); Ilana Feldman and Miriam Ticktin (eds), In the Name of Humanity: The Government of Threat and Care (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010).

¹² Fassin, Humanitarian Reason.

¹³ Thomas W. Laqueur, “Mourning, Pity, and the Work of Narrative in the Making of ‘Humanity,’” in Richard Ashby Wilson and Richard D. Brown (eds), Humanitarianism and Suffering: The Mobilization of Empathy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 31–57.

¹⁴ Barnett, Empire of Humanity, p. 19.

¹⁵ For example: Michel Agier, “Humanity as an Identity and its Political Effects (A Note on Camps and Humanitarian Government),” Humanity 1:1 (2010), pp. 29–45; Barnett, Empire of Humanity; Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarianism Contested: Where Angels Fear to Tread (Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2011); Fassin, Humanitarian Reason; Monika Krause, The Good Project: Humanitarain Relief NGOs and the Fragmentation of Reason (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 2014); Lisa Ann Richey and Stafano Ponte, Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011); Lilie Chouliaraki, The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2013).

¹⁶ Diaspora Emergency Action and Coordination, Diaspora Humanitarianism: Transnational Ways of Working (European Union, EU: DEMAC Consortium, 2016), p. 10.

¹⁷ Barnett, Empire of Humanity, p. 21.

¹⁸ Agier, “Humanity as an Identity,” p. 32. For discussion on the genealogy of dominant humanitarian actors, see Peter Redfield and Erica Bornstein, “An Introduction to the Anthropology of Humanitarianism,” in Peter Redfield and Erica Bornstein (eds), Forces of Compassion: Humanitarianism Between Ethics and Politics (Sante Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, 2010), pp. 3–30.

¹⁹ OCHA, Who We Are (January 13, 2018), available online at: http://www.unocha.org/about-us/who-we-are.

²⁰ These are: Food and Agriculture Organization, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, International Organization for Migration, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Save the Children, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Programme, World Food Program, and World Health Organisation, available online at: http://www.unocha.org/what-we-do/coordination-tools/cluster-coordination.

²¹ Development Initiatives, Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2017 (October 15, 2018), p. 71, available online at: http://devinit.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/GHA-Report-2017-Full-report.pdf.

²² The largest and most prominent international NGOs involved in humanitarian relief include: Save the Children, Médecins Sans Frontières, World Vision, CARE, Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services, International Rescue Committee, Médecins du Monde, Action Contre La Faim, International Medical Corps, Islamic Relief Worldwide, and Lutheran World Relief, all of which have their origins in Europe or North America. See: Redfield and Bornstein, Forces of Compassion, p. 19.

²³ Development Initiatives, Global Humanitarian, p. 73. Figures on NGO funding are for 2016.

²⁴ Barnett, Empire of Humanity, p. 9. See also Simon Reid-Henry, “Humanitarianism as Liberal Diagnostic: Humanitarian Reason and the Political Rationalities of the Liberal Will-to-Care,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 39 (2014), pp. 418–31.

²⁵ Michel Agier, Managing the Undesirables: Refugee Camps and Humanitarian Government (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2011); Ian Smillie and Larry Minear, The Charity of Nations: Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2004); Michael Barnett, “Humanitarianism Transformed,” Perspectives on Politics 3:4 (2005), pp. 723–40; Fassin, Humanitarian Reason.

²⁶ Barnett, Empire of Humanity, p. 11. See also Agier, Managing the Undesirables; Didier Fassin, “Heart of Humaneness: The Moral Economy of Humanitarian Intervention,” in Didier Fassin and Mariella Pandolfi (eds), Contemporary States of Emergency: The Politics of Military and Humanitarian Interventions (New York, NY: Zone Books, 2010), pp. 269–94; Barbara Harrell-Bond, “Can Humanitarian Work with Refugees be Humane?” Human Rights Quarterly 24:1 (2002), pp. 51–85.

²⁷ Didier Fassin, “Inequality of Lives, Hierarchies of Humanity: Moral Commitments and Ethical Dilemmas of Humanitarianism,” in Ilana Feldman and Miriam Ticktin (eds), In the Name of Humanity: The Government of Threat and Care (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), pp. 238–55; Krause, Good Project.

²⁸ Chouliaraki, Ironic Spectator; Fassin, “Heart of Humaneness”; Harrell-Bond, “Can Humanitarian Work”; Richey and Ponte, Brand Aid; Lisa Ann Richey (ed.), Celebrity Humanitarianism and North-South Relations: Politics, Place and Power (Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2016); Krause, Good Project.

²⁹ Malkki, Need to Help; Fassin, “Heart of Humaneness”; Peter Redfield, “The Unbearable Lightness of Ex-Pats: Double Binds of Humanitarian Mobility,” Cultural Anthropology 27:2 (2012), pp. 358–82; Krause, Good Project.

³⁰ Michael Barnett acknowledges in Empire of Humanity that “we live in a world of humanitarianisms, not humanitarianism,” (p. 10) even while his work is centrally focused on dominant practices.

³¹ Julia Pacitto and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, “Writing the ‘Other’ into Humanitarian Discourse: Framing Theory and Practice in South-South Humanitarian Responses to Forced Displacement,” New Issues in Refugee Research 93:257 (2013), p. 4.

³² Jonathan Benthall and Robert Lacey (eds), Gulf Charities and Islamic Philanthropy in the “Age of Terror” and Beyond (Berlin, DE: Gerlach, 2014).

³³ Jacinta O’Hagan and Miwa Hirono, “Fragmentation of the International Humanitarian Order? Understanding ‘Cultures of Humanitarianism’ in East Asia,” Ethics & International Affairs 28:4 (2014), pp. 409–24.

³⁴ Pacitto and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, “Writing the ‘Other’”; Erica Bornstein, Disquieting Gifts: Humanitarianism in New Delhi, (Standford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012). Southern Responses to Displacement, available online at: https://southernresponses.org/.

³⁵ Dorothea Hilhorst and Bram J. Jansen, “Humanitarian Space as Arena: A Perspective on the Everyday Politics of Aid,” Development & Change 41:6 (2010), pp. 1117–39.

³⁶ This was the focus of the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit convened by then-UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (see: https://www.agendaforhumanity.org/summit). For discussions on “new” humanitarian actors, see: Dennis Dijkzeul and Zeynep Sezgin (eds), The New Humanitarians in International Practice (London, UK: Routledge, 2015).

³⁷ See, for recent examples, Alexander Betts and Will Jones, Mobilising the Diaspora: How Refugees Challenge Authoritarianism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016); Valerie Francisco-Menchavez, “Save Mary Jane Veloso: Solidarity and Global Migrant Activism in the Filipino Labor Diaspora,” Perspectives on Global Development & Technology 17:1/2 (2018), pp. 202–19.

³⁸ While humanitarianism takes place in different contexts where people are in need, this article focusses specifically on humanitarian responses in situations of forced displacement and on persons of concern to the international refugee regime.

³⁹ There has been significant research on the role of diasporas as remittance-senders in situations of forced displacement, but this has focused on individual- or household-level practices that fall within the realm of family care practices, and are not generally considered “humanitarian” acts. For example, Alessandro Monsutti, “Cooperation, Remittances, and Kinship among the Hazaras,” Iranian Studies 37:2 (2004), pp. 219–40.

⁴⁰ See Forced Migration Review, Local Communities: First and Last Providers of Protection, available online at: http://www.fmreview.org/community-protection.html.

⁴¹ 1985–2013 statistics taken from Janet Phillips and Joanne Simon-Davies, Migration to Australia: A Quick Guide to the Statistics (Canberra, AU: Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia, 2014), p. 3. 2013-2016 statistics taken from the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection (October 15, 2018), available online at: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/reports-publications/reports/annual/annual-report-2016-17.

⁴² Andrew Jakubowicz, “Living as a Diaspora: The Politics of Exclusion in Relation to Refugees and Disabled People,” ISAA Review 2:3 (2002), pp. 6–12.

⁴³ Van Hear, “Rise of Refugee Diasporas.”

⁴⁴ Nicholas Van Hear and Robin Cohen, “Diasporas and Conflict: Distance, Contiguity and Spheres of Engagement,” Oxford Development Studies 45:2 (2017), pp. 171–84.

⁴⁵ The Oromo are a large ethnic minority from the Oromia region of Ethiopia.

⁴⁶ Each application for an offshore refugee resettlement visa involves a thirty-six-page legal document (application form 842) with documents in languages other than English required to be translated.

⁴⁷ ASPIRE, “Quietly Settled: Hope Restored,” YouTube (July 7, 2012), available online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JcuN0alTIo.

⁴⁸ Radio Free Asia, “Karenni Refugee Camp Fire Destroys Hundreds of Homes in Eastern Myanmar,” Radio Free Asia (April 7, 2015), available online at: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/karenni-refugee-camp-fire-destroys-homes-04072015150842.html/.

⁴⁹ Liisa Malkki’s important work on Finnish Red Cross workers suggests there are complex undercurrents in the “need to help” for humanitarian professionals (see Malkki, Need to Help).

⁵⁰ Thomas Laqueur cited by Laura Suski, “Children, Suffering, and the Humanitarian Appeal,” in Richard Ashby Wilson and Richard D. Brown (eds), Humanitarianism and Suffering: The Mobilization of Empathy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 210.

⁵¹ Ibid.

⁵² Fassin, Humanitarian Reason; Ticktin, Causalities of Care.

⁵³ The important work that was begun by Marcel Mauss, and has been built on by many others, describes the ways in which the giving of a gift is embedded with ideas of reciprocity. To receive a gift involves norms of obligation to reciprocate in ways that are culturally and socially contextual and which can create ongoing ties. For some of my participants, however, the context in which they received a gift did not provide a straightforward way of reciprocating. Didier Fassin argues that the humanitarian “gift” of assistance is founded on the (unrevealed) fact that the gift is unequal. While Fassin suggests that “[r]ecipients of humanitarian assistance cannot offer anything in return, except in the highly asymmetric form of gratitude or in narratives of their distress,” this research suggests that involvement in RDOs may be another way ofreciprocating “the gift” of humanitarian assistance.

⁵⁴ RDOs primarily fundraise through their own social networks and at diaspora community events. RDO modalities are therefore also quite distinct from the fundraising strategies of professional humanitarian organizations, both in terms of scale and in the ways in which donors are engaged.

⁵⁵ There is significant literature on diasporas and long-distance nationalism that focusses on their impact on political processes, particularly in times of conflict. Oft cited is Peter Collier’s Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and their Implications for Policy (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2000). See also Daniel Byman, Peter Chalk, Bruce Hoffman, William Rosenau, and David Brannan, Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2001).

⁵⁶ Barnett, Empire of Humanity, pp. 15–16.

⁵⁷ Chouliaraki, Ironic Spectator; Fassin, Humanitarian Reason.

⁵⁸ Krause, Good Project, p. 174.

⁵⁹ Louise Olliff, Refugee Diaspora Organizations in the International Refugee Regime: Motivations, Modalities and Implications of Diaspora Humanitarianism (Melbourne, AU: University of Melbourne, 2018), available online at: https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/213433.

⁶⁰ Critical reflection on the limitations and challenges of refugee diaspora humanitarianism, including diaspora particularism and effectiveness, has been addressed elsewhere. See: Olliff, Refugee Diaspora Organizations.

⁶¹ Agenda for Humanity, The Grand Bargain: A Shared Commitment to Better Serve People in Need (Istanbul, TR: Relief Web, 2016), available online at: https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Grand_Bargain_final_22_May_FINAL-2.pdf; Charter4Change, Charter for Change: Localisation of Humanitarian Aid (November 28, 2016), available online at: https://charter4change.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/charter-for-change-july-20152.pdf.

⁶² For example, a small refugee-led organization in Indonesia, the Cisarua Refugee Learning Centre, has established an impressive social media following that has allowed it to fundraise globally to sustain its activities. The organization has grown its social media network by members of the refugee diaspora (those who were active in the organization in Indonesia before resettling elsewhere) facilitating Skype video calls between refugees in Indonesia and schools and universities in the US, Canada, and Australia.

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Louise Olliff

Louise Olliff works as a senior advisor for the Refugee Council of Australia, where she has been employed in policy, research, and advocacy roles since 2009. She completed her PhD in Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2018, where her research was on Refugee Diaspora Organizations in the International Refugee Regime: Motivations, Modalities and Implications of Diaspora Humanitarianism.